aNewDomain — Lots of public pressure mounted in the last week and it finally happened: The Confederate battle flag is now toxic.

And it is not just politically toxic. It also now is socially toxic, as Americans at last begin to recognize it as the symbol of racism and social regression it always was.

It looks like the Confederate flag is on its way out. But that doesn’t mean racism is over. It means it will become less and less popular or acceptable to say racist things or display racist things publicly in the South.

The real danger here is that the most serious racists, once socially ousted, will just put on their old white hoods. Here’s why.

Republicans, Dixie Democrats And The Ku Klux Klan

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has asked the State Legislature to enact the flag’s removal from the capitol building in Columbia, SC. But the state assembly is heavily Republican (34 of 41 members) and we’ve always known in our hearts that conservative Southern Republicans have to cater to racist voters.

But seeing the name Council of Conservative Citizens on a list of donors won’t immediately alert you to what this group is. Especially if your admin never digs any deeper and just writes a nice thank you letter.

But is this meaningful change? And what good is any of it if the worst racists start wearing hoods again?

The remainder of Republican presidential candidates have bounced the question of rebel flags back to the states. No position. It seems like we aren’t even asking Democratic candidates because we all know who’s exploiting racism, right?

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.”

He was speaking so directly at our times that Michelle Alexander captured these same ideas for The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. This work details how the U.S. criminal justice system, in turning a blind eye to racism, ends up enacting racism everywhere in America every single day. The stats support this totally …

But here Dr. King is also talking to political institutions that keep us divided — black, white and other — institutions that keep us from forming effective voting blocs based on true differences.

Winning elections had much to do with keeping people of color, especially poor people of color, from voting in the segregationist South. Voter ID laws today are largely discredited but they are still marching through state houses nationwide, and especially in the red states.

The Republican Party keeps telling itself it has to court women and minorities, to broaden the tent. And stats support this notion.

But courting women and minorities distances the party from its base, which was constructed for itself in the racist South.

Meanwhile, the Republicans warmly welcomed in Dixiecrats and spent the next five decades gerrymandering so they could chase those votes as if they’re the only ones that ever mattered.

The way out isn’t in taking the flag down, although that would be a helpful first step. The key is to get out of anything-to-win politics, and racial policies in which candidates cherry pick voters. To seem welcoming, you have to actually be welcoming.

4 Comments

Jason, its you & your ilk who are the true racists & its also people like yourself and these democrats led by Obama who have taken race relations in this country back in time at least 50 years and maybe more! Please include the “Southern Poverty Law Center” who are the most evil & pure SCUM!

Wow! This is one of the most slanted and bigoted pieces I’ve ever read on this website! I get the impression that you insinuate all republicans are associated with the KKK, or even all southern democrats (the Dixiecrats).

Do you live in the south or have you ever? Sure, racism exists… just as it does in every community in every corner of the world in some capacity or other.

I think what this really all boils down to is a group of people feeling their culture is being demonized and hijacked, which in turn entrenches them and makes them feel bullied. The funny thing is, the people doing the bullying are the same people who constantly cry foul of BULLYING!

I hope this is just a lame attempt at clickbait. This editorial and the person who wrote it seem as short sighted and bigoted as the KKK itself!